Tender Grace (15 page)

“Going on a hike?”

I looked up to see a stout woman on the couch across from me, her right foot resting on her left knee. She smiled.

I smiled back. “Yes,” I said, “I’m going to try it.”

“My sister and I hiked yesterday. Mercy, we didn’t know if we were going to make it back to the top, but as you can plainly see, we did. That should encourage you. We’re heading to the river today for some white-water rafting.”

“Oh my,” I said. “I hope your insurance is paid up.”

She thought that was hilarious.

“No, I told you wrong. We’re going on a
smooth
water raft trip. We didn’t get reservations for the white-water rafting. Besides, the shortest one of those trips is three days! We waited too long for something like that. This one’s a half-day trip, just about right for Pearl and myself. We’ll be back from our trip by dinnertime.”

She stopped for breath. “I’m Ruby,” she said.

“I’m Audrey.”

Ruby looked maybe fifteen years older than I, but a good deal friskier.

“I finally retired from the gas company last month,” she said, tucking a piece of her short gray hair behind her ear, “and my sister Pearl and I decided it was time to see this place. She’s upstairs getting our first-aid kit. She needed a Band-Aid, and I told her we might as well take the whole mess with us.”

“Well, I’ve got new boots—”

“They
look
new,” she said.

I doubt Ruby meant to interrupt—the observation simply erupted.

“So,” I continued, “I’ve put a Band-Aid on every potential pressure point. There are so many Band-Aids on my feet, I think I should have bought boots a half size bigger.”

Ruby thought that was hilarious too.

“Just let me tell you this. You and those boots better stay out of the way of any mules on that trail.”

Ruby, of course, unacquainted with my history with horses, could not have known her warning was unnecessary. Horses, mules, donkeys—they’re all the same to me. Out of their way is where I always plan to be.

“Did you ride the mules down to the canyon floor?” I asked.

“You bet we did, the second day we were here, and it’s an experience I could have lived without. Did you know that those mules have to rest, and just guess how they do that?”

She went on before I could guess.

“There’s no room to do it in any sensible way. What they do is turn to face the edge. One false move, you’re over the side and on a two-mile ride straight to the bottom.”

“Two miles?”

“Something like that. Anyway, a young fellow in our group somehow came off his mule. I about had a heart attack, and I’m not kidding.”

“What happened?”

“Girl, they had to send in a helicopter after him, and do you know what that costs?”

I couldn’t imagine.

“Three thousand dollars! And I’m not kidding.”

“Oh my, that probably ruined his morning,” I said.

Ruby laughed again. It was pleasant being around someone who could laugh so readily.

“Well,” she said, looking beyond me to the staircase, “here’s Pearl! We’d best get going.”

She stood up and called Pearl over. “You need to meet Pearl,” she said.

“Are you two twins?” I asked after the introductions.

They laughed at that, though they must have heard it many times. Pearl has the same gray hair, cut short like her sister’s, and she’s only a tad stouter and taller than Ruby. Neither of them bothered with makeup, giving them a scrubbed, take-me-or-leave-me look, and both seem to enjoy life and each other immensely.

“Audrey,” Ruby said, “why don’t you eat dinner with Pearl and me in the dining room tonight? We can tell each other about our day. Two for the price of one.”

I was sure they’d have plenty to tell me, but dinner with relative strangers in a dining room didn’t have much appeal. I’ve grown comfortable eating alone in my room.

“Oh, I don’t know, Ruby.”

“Got other plans, huh?”

“No, not really. Okay, maybe I
will
come. You’re nice to ask.”

“Nice nothing,” Pearl said, “she’s desperate. She needs somebody besides me to talk to. She’s heard all my stories more times than she can count.”

“Six thirty,” Ruby said, grabbing Pearl’s arm and heading for the door.

I sat smiling and watching them until they had climbed into a waiting van, and then I returned to my canyon guide, trying to decide which trail to take for my first serious hike.

I chose the trail that promised the best views for a short hike—relatively short anyway.

I have to say I made a good choice. I was exhausted when I climbed back on the shuttle several hours later. Probably I should have started with a shorter trail, but the view
was
spectacular and I felt proud of myself for making it. So what if I did stop more often than any other person I saw on the trail?

I’m going to take a shower, read, and then I think I’ll go down to the dining room for my first public meal since I left home.

“Well, don’t you look pretty,” Ruby said when I walked into the dining room and found the sisters.

I had traded my khaki shorts for a soft knit khaki skirt and added a brown knit tank top and a jean jacket. Ruby wore a navy dress with a boxy matching jacket, and Pearl wore a red cotton skirt and a cotton overblouse with a geometric design that used every color in a crayon box except the red of her skirt. I fully expected Stacy and Clinton from
What Not
to Wear
to burst through the doors and whisk Pearl away. But I would have stopped them. The world needs its Pearls.

“Saved a chair for you,” Pearl said.

“Guess what, ladies?” I said, pulling out my chair and sitting between them, completing the triangle at the intimate round table. “I didn’t run into a mule today.”

“Well, that’s good,” Ruby said. “We had a dandy day too. You might want to try the smooth water rafting trip. I’d have to say it was easier than that hike we took yesterday.”

“You know, if I have time, I might. Tom and I used to canoe, and I enjoyed it so much.”

After we placed our orders, I asked Ruby if she and Pearl had more family at home. She said she and her husband were never able to have children and that he died twenty-five years ago in a head-on collision with a truck that swerved into his lane. After all these years, Ruby winced and shook her head when she told me that. I think I did too.

“Pearl never married,” Ruby continued with only the slightest pause, “but we have two brothers and two other sisters who have blessed us with lots of nieces and nephews.”

When I asked if she and Pearl lived together, she said they had a duplex. “Works out good,” she said.

She shocked me when she said they lived in Portland, Oregon. I wouldn’t have guessed they were from the Northwest if they’d given me all night long and a thousand dollars to come up with where they were from. She explained that after her husband died, she and Pearl moved out from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to be near three of their four other siblings.

“Fort Smith isn’t far from where I grew up,” I said. “That seems brave, moving clear across the country at that point in your life.”

“It wasn’t as hard as you’d think. Pearl worked for JCPenney and they transferred her to a Portland store, and I got on at the gas company right away. We wanted to be around family. I guess we’ll die there when the time comes.”

“Probably so,” said Pearl. “And that’ll be all right. We don’t have folks back in Arkansas anymore. And Oregon’s pretty country too.”

Ruby had ordered a fried chicken salad for an entrée, which left her in charge of the conversation when the waiter brought Pearl and me our dinner salads.

“Our mother named us girls after gemstones, you see. Mama said that our names were likely as close to a gem as she was ever going to get. She also said it didn’t matter none, because we were worth far more than any ‘sparkly’—that’s how she put it. Opal was first, then Pearl, me, and Onyx.”

“Onyx,” I said. “That’s an interesting name.”

“Yes, it is,” said Ruby, “but not half as interesting as the boys’ names.”

“This is a good story,” Pearl said, “and it’s the honest truth.”

“Mama decided to stay with an earth theme, so she named the boys Cotton and Wheat.”

“Really,” I said, opening a cellophane package of crackers. “I’ve heard of Cotton Mather, and I actually know a man in Springfield nicknamed Cotton, but I have never known, or even heard of, a Wheat.”

“You haven’t heard the punch line,” Pearl said.

“Our last name is Fields,” Ruby said.

“Okay,” I said, putting down my fork. “You ladies are teasing me.”

“No, we’re not!” Ruby said. “Show her your driver’s license, Pearl.”

Pearl was already digging it out of her purse. She flipped open her billfold and there behind the plastic license cover was a picture of Pearl with the name Pearl Fields beside it.

“Cotton Fields?” I said.

“And Wheat Fields,” said Ruby. “Mama didn’t see a thing wrong with those names. Thought they sounded nice and honored practicality. Their names aren’t up to Ima and Ura Pigg, I guess, but I love introducing my brothers, that’s for sure.

“When Mama was forty years old, sitting at the dinner table with the six kids—we were pretty big by then—Daddy came in with a ring in his hand and laid it on the table in front of her. ‘There,’ he said, looking at each of us girls, ‘there’s you a diamond.’ And sure enough, it was. It was a little one, but it was a diamond, and that was something, ’cause we didn’t have much in those days. Mama put her apron up to her face and bawled like a baby.

“ ‘Goodness, Cleo,’ Daddy said, ‘I didn’t buy it to upset you.’ Mama put that ring on, right next to the thin gold-plated band he bought her the second year they were married, and she wore it all her days.”

“That is a sweet story,” I said.

“It really is,” Ruby said. “I haven’t thought about it in years. Have you, Pearl?”

“No, but here it is.” She held up her hand, veined but soft and unusually smooth for her age, and I inspected the ring and its delicate setting. If they hadn’t told me the precious diamond was there, I doubt I would have detected it.

“Opal was the oldest, so she was supposed to get it by rights when Mama passed, but all us girls decided Pearl should have it since she never married.”

Pearl smiled.

“Another sweet story,” I said.

They asked about me then, and over my tuxedo chicken, I told them about the kids and grandkids, told them Tom had died a year and a half ago, and told them I was on a trip to the West Coast to see what I could see.

“Well, honey, you sound like a brave one too,” said Ruby.

Brave, did she say?

“And when you get to that coastal highway, you just turn your car north and get on up to Oregon. Pearl and I will show you the sights in Portland, and I’m not kidding.”

I didn’t think she was. Not for a minute.

September 7

I met Ruby and Pearl at ten for a late breakfast (late for them anyway). They were packed up and ready to check out but wanted to take a quick walk on the canyon rim before they started back to Oregon.

“A late breakfast is perfect,” Ruby had said last night before we went our separate ways. “This way we won’t have to eat but one other time tomorrow. I plan to put the pedal to the metal. Even with a late start I think we can make it home in two days.”

“You sound like my husband,” I said, “except he might try to make it in one.”

Present tense lingers.

I ate a huge, delicious breakfast, enjoying the company and dreading the departure of Ruby Willingham and Pearl Fields. I walked with them to their car, and after they had hugged me good-bye and I had wished them a safe trip, Ruby pulled a notebook out of her purse and ripped a piece of paper out of it.

“Now, this has all the information you’ll need when you get to Portland,” she said. “You’ve got our phone numbers and our address with easy directions. If the Lord brings you up that way, and Pearl and I hope he does, you’d better call.

You hear?”

“I hear you.”

When the ladies got settled in the car, Ruby lowered her window and looked at me.

“This was a dandy trip,” she said, “and you had a part in that, Audrey. You be careful when you head out of here tomorrow.”

Tears pooled in her blue eyes. “Would you look at me,” she said, starting the car. She backed out and took off without saying good-bye. She had said last night she didn’t care for the word. The last thing I saw was Pearl leaning out of her window waving and shouting something about seeing me soon.

After they were out of sight, I began my day on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I planned to hike, hardly more than walk really, the rim of the red route, seven miles from beginning to end. This was a challenge, but I planned on taking the shuttle back, and I also knew I could catch it several places along the way if the seven miles became too much. But I wasn’t running a race, I had all day if I wanted, and there were eight lookout points along the way, and places to stop and get my breath between points. The view at every point was awesome, a reflection of the God who provided it.

At a point about two miles into my hike, I found some shade and a place to plop for my first serious rest. As I sat there, a man and woman a little younger than I, along with a boy and girl who looked like they might be in their early teens, came from the trail into the open space of the observation point. The woman saw my shade and sat down not far from me while the man and the kids hurried down to the rail to take pictures.